Top 13 moments of the NHL lockout

Chris Young and Louis Lanzano, AP01.07.2013

Relive the best parts of the worst thing with our top 13 moments of the NHL lockout.

Chris Young and Louis Lanzano
/ AP

13 | Joffrey Lupul took to Twitter to express his frustrations on December 16, complaining that the lockout had left him unable to make a reservation at Real Sports pub in Toronto. James Van Riemsdyk chimed in to agree. Both players eventually removed the tweets, but not before letting us know how hard the lockout was on them.Richard Wolowicz
/ Getty Images

12 | Barack Obama has still never been to a Washington Capitals game, so it was something of a shock to see him weigh in on the NHL lockout not once, but twice. The first time was during an apparance on Jay Leno. "Y'all should be able to figure this out," Obama said, and he wasn't referring to Leno and Letterman.

12 | It was just a joke, but comedic timing is everything in humour, and Kane's timing was all off. The Jets' winger's tweet to Floyd Mayweather, in which he used two stacks of hundreds as a telephone, infuriated Canadian sports fans, who didn't need to be reminded that they were being deprived of hockey by millionaires that could use a stack of hundreds as a prop.@EKane9JETS
/ Twitter

11 | Johnny Oduya (center) used the lockout as an opportunity for a playing vacation. He headed to Thailand to take in the sights, but he also signed up for a tournament, leading the Bangkok team to their first ever Land of Smiles Hockey Classic championship.Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

10 | Exactly one month into the NHL lockout, details from an NHL focus group led by GOP strategist Frank Luntz were leaked by Deadspin. The peek inside the NHL's plans to spin the lockout in their favour led to a sudden new offer, as well as the death of the term "shared sacrifice".Images
/ Google

9 | As first reported on Yahoo!'s Puck Daddy, a Vancouver gun range took out their frustrations on this target of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. It was the range's most popular target.Puck Daddy
/ Yahoo!

8 | A lot of players turned up in interesting places during the lockout, but none were stranger than Sidney Crosby's turn as a secret ball hockey goalie in a Pittsburgh rec league. Crosby didn't say a word during the game, staknig his team to a 4-0 shutout, then slipping out before almost anyone realized he'd even been there.David Denoma, Reuters
/ Postmedia News

7 | Canucks' winger Dale Weise joined the Tilburg Trappers of the Dutch League during the lockout, and made a major impact. In 19 games witht he Trappers, Weise picked up 48 points. Meanwhile, the Trappers allowed just 43 goals, going 16-0-1-2. Weise was seen off with a standing ovation from the Tilburg fans after leaving an indelible impression on Dutch hockey.Tilburg Trappers
/ trappers.nl

6 | One of the lockout's strangest moments came when hockey fan and blogger Harrison Mooney released his Robyn parody video, "Call the Union". Nothing made us long for the sight of players on the ice (or anything else, really) more than the sight of Mooney in those navy blue women's yoga pants.Pass It To Bulis blog
/ Vancouver Sun

5 | Shortly after team staff and owners were muzzled, Jim Devellano helped nobody by doing an interview with a Long Island sports journalist in which he called the players "cattle". He was fined $250,000 for his remarks. Chris Higgins felt Devellano's comments were just an expression of frustration at the lockout.Jason Payne
/ Vancouver Sun

4 | Less than two weeks into the NHL lockout, Krys Barch snapped. After downing 8 beers and starting in on a bottle of Porte, Barch took to Twitter for an epic, 600-word rant that inspired and confused in equal parts. "All what my heart tells me to do far surpasses what my body has endured," Barch said. No one knew what he meant. But we slow-clapped for him anyway.Al Bello
/ Getty Images

3 | Lockouts aren't typically entertaining, but the most entertaining moment by far came no December 6th, when the union and the league staged three back-to-back-to-back press conferences, each more thrilling than the last. First, Donald Fehr told us that talks were going well. Then he checked his voicemail, came back, and told us talks had broken off. Then Gary Bettman and Bill Daly hit the stage and tore up the microphone like an Outkast reunion for about ten minutes. What fun.Chris Young and Louis Lanzano
/ AP

2 | On December 5th, crews set up the NHL podium, presumably so somebody from the league side could speak behind it. Instead, it sat, unused, for over two hours, giving us a meme, a parody Twitter account, and perhaps the best metaphor for the NHL lockout: a completely senseless waste of time.Bruce Bennett, Getty Images Files
/ Ottawa Citizen

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